I Wondered If I Could Come Home
by emfghtykj
Summary: She had the largest heart of anyone he would ever meet, and she's waiting for him to smash the pane of glass that separates them to prove it. She looked beautiful in a dress when she was eight, and he's willing to bet she looks beautiful in a dress now.


She crumpled up another piece of paper and leaned back in the desk chair she pervaded nearly two hours earlier. Suddenly she felt old, so old for a girl not yet out of high school. She sighed, put her pen down on paper, and started again.

* * *

><p>As a letter from a wildly hormonal high school student, lust and love are interchangeable but make no mistake when I tell you my feelings about you, for you are set in stone, definite. My music is loud but yours is louder when it plays at all hours. It will come on at 12 after I think you'd gone to sleep, it turns on when you pull an all nighter to study and before you stumble out your door after a couple of pre-party drinks and forget to turn it off. Sometimes it blares and the bass thumps and rattles the panes of glass in our windows and sometimes it's indie, obscure, that none but your beachy, gypsy girlfriend has heard of and probably introduced you to. Sometimes it's soft, so soft that I only notice it when you open the windows to let in the summer air, and the chirping cicadas and breaking waves on the ocean can't drown it out.<p>

I've never watched you undress. It's a step I'm not willing to take in our non-existent relationship. I get as far as seeing you shirtless - which isn't a novelty, we live a few streets from the ocean - and I can't make myself go any further than your toned chest and the bumps of your spine before I slap my hand over my eyes and stumble out of the room and into the unlit corridor, where the hardwood is cool under my bare feet. Sometimes I find it even more difficult because when I paint my toenails, I have to walk on my heels which makes it just the slightest bit harder to watch out for the twins' spare Lego and Transformers that blend seamlessly with the shag area rugs. That's another thing, childhood, because you had one. It was similar to mine, in fact ours were almost identical.

I know your model home like the back of my hand, even after 7 years of separation. My memory is frayed at the edges and the exact details have grown sketchy, have whittled away until all I'm sure of are feelings. We were happy. Together. As children.

Your house was more of a classic style (it still is as far as I know) because your mom was (is) an interior designer and hated the bamboo and open doorless entryways that came with living in a resort town.

You were an accident. I found out one afternoon when a man with a beard and bloodshot eyes showed up and told you he fathered you. Lilian came home to you and I barricaded in the guest bathroom and a man in the kitchen who smelled like old books and wore sandals. When she called the police, I started to cry right along with you.

We played at the beach and, when we couldn't make it, in your backyard with the sprinklers and hoses on full blast, mud underfoot.

When I dressed up for Lonnie's wedding you pulled a face at the off-white dress, makeup and coiffed hair and I shrugged like I didn't care. I wonder if you could have felt what my eight year old self felt at that moment you would have acted differently because if you hadn't been distracted immediately by your mom and her pomade, you would've seen the tears that I blinked away and how wet the back of my hand was. You made up for it later when you told me I was prettier when I looked normal but the ache in my chest didn't go away entirely.

Once you called me beautiful, but it didn't mean anything because ten year olds don't fall in love. Usually.

When they teased you because your only friend was a girl who wore large t-shirts because she wasn't comfortable with herself and had curly beach hair that was never brushed, you pulled away and for a minute, I acted like everything would go back to normal because I was innocent (ignorant) and trusted you. I snapped out of that pretty quickly when you turned out to be good at soccer and other team sports that girls in elementary school didn't play on principle. After that, I was always the last one picked for teams, the teachers partner, that kid who read against the fence and just got in the way. That was the day I grew up.

I immersed myself in whatever I could find. I went through the entire grade 10 reading list in the 6th grade because all that time I used to spend with you left a gaping hole in my life. I painted, I wrote, I gardened, I nursed the heartache with any and every extra-curricular I could think of, and all the while we lived on either side of a pane of glass that seemed as impenetrable to my ten year old self as a cement wall.

Your first girlfriend was in grade 8. Everyone else started dating long before that but you didn't believe in it because, even after you hit puberty, you knew that young relationships were "pointless, stupid and wouldn't last," as you worded it so eloquently. So when you found a half decent girl in a sea of bland, over made-up faces you seized the opportunity and dated a girl who reminded everyone of you. In middle school, relationships are interchangeable and one can end just as quickly as it began, so when you didn't-really-break-up-but-just-kind-of-stopped-talking, nobody batted an eye. Meanwhile I found an unlikely friend in the librarian, while you made it to the summer games in Scotland.

In high school I was still singled out for my obscure band t-shirts and floral prints. the thing that confused the girls most was how I could wear a skirt that didn't come up past my knees, or that they even made those anymore. You fell in with the elite and in that first year you took a senior to prom, living in a world as inaccessible to me as the moon. You joined every team sport the school offered until your collarbone snapped one football game at the 40 meter line. Your girlfriend on the cheerleading team collapsed the pyramid when she ran out from under it to help you on the field. I almost felt bad for Emily when she received a concussion and dislocated shoulder after her fall from the top, and none of the credit in light of _your_ injury.

You didn't notice when I stood in the stands, mostly because the entire crowd also did but you never noticed me anymore anyways. Nor did you give me any credit when you started swimming - at the same pool I went to - to keep in shape during your dry season and to recondition. I smiled when I realized you kept swimming even after you started playing again because I was relieved that I still knew you like I knew your house and I knew you liked the solitary confinement, the space it gave you to think and relax. I realized your life was not perfect. you were never afforded the independence I had in spades, ironically, thanks to you, I suppose.

After your cheerleader girlfriend, you dated an indie girl with wild brown hair and flowing dresses and canvas bags and freckles. Lots of freckles. You liked her, I could tell because she was the first one you took home. The first one you took into your bedroom and when she was the one undressing you that time I closed my eyes and made my way downstairs hoping I would break my ankle in the dark, because any pain would be better the the heartbreak I felt now. I didn't open my eyes when I sank down into the living room couch but instead squeezed them tighter and let the tears fall unashamedly in the dark.

That break up was long and drawn out. The phone calls you made in the night were arguments. You would rub the bridge of your nose, take a deep breath and sink down onto the bed, into yourself much like I did whenever reality hit me. Once you threw your phone into the bushes under your window and I never saw you retrieve it. The fights stopped after that.

The lights are on in your window but its three in the morning and even I'm tired. This is a hot night even for oceanic suburbia and our windows are open but no music is playing, only the sounds of typical beach town. In fact now that I'm looking, all the lights in your house are on and I can't see anybody in the windows. Are you home?

* * *

><p>She dropped the pen on her desk, on the letter she would never send and made her way down the stairs, jumping the trick step to keep from waking the whole house when it would creak. The door opened silently and the cloying air immediately clung to her exposed skin like a sheet. The sea breeze helped some but the humidity was ineffective against the inexplicable dryness in her throat. She couldn't believe what she was doing. It was too monumental for words. The list of cons in this situation were too long to list, so instead of reasoning she stepped off her doorstep and onto the front lawn.<p>

She hurried up the sidewalk and driveway, over his front lawn to his doorstep. shutting her eyes tight to keep herself from turning back, she knocked loudly, purposefully. The cement was flat and hard under her feet but all she could feel was the tumbling of her stomach and noticed how her brain seemed to have given out on her. Through the frosted glass she made out his frame and all of a sudden this seemed like a terrible idea.

On the verge of spinning around and running as far away as possible the door opened and his 6"3 frame was thrown into relief. She looked up at him.

"Yes?" he asked not unkindly.

"I was, well…. I w-was wondering if you were okay after..." Since when had she stuttered?

His face cleared of emotion so fast it almost seemed as if they'd started over and he was wondering why she was on his doorstep again.

"Im fine" he replied in an even tone.

Her face clouded "Bullshit," She growled. "You are a liar." She poked him in the chest.

At 5"9 she was tall for a girl but she was nothing in comparison to the 200 pounds of muscle still blocking the doorway, so literally poking the beast wasn't her smartest move.

His reaction was way out of line and he knew it but his emotions were still raw and his thought process wasn't the clearest. "What do you know? You've never even been in love!"

Immediately he knew his passionate outburst was going to cost him because he had seen this girl in almost every light but never had he seen such a heartbreaking turmoil of fury and confusion cross a persons face. She hadn't had friends in so long, she'd forgotten how to hide things.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you. If I did - "

"Accidents happen," She spat gruffly.

"No that was mean of me. Please come inside, at least have something to drink,"

The first rule of all american boys - chivalry is _not _dead. "Well - "

"Katie, I'm not giving you a choice. you aren't wearing pants and standing on a strangers doorstep isn't helping," He was oblivious to the way her eyes hardened at the word stranger and neither of them spoke when she stepped past him, poured herself a glass of apple juice and hoisted herself up to sit on the marble island in the middle of his kitchen.

"How have you been?" He asked

She raised her eyebrows over her plastic cup and finished drinking before replying "Do you really want to know?" He nodded his encouragement.

"I've been awful - like, completely terrible. Why would you even ask that?" Her forehead wrinkled in disgust. He opened his mouth to respond but she didn't let him finish. "I can't believe you!"

"Why?"

"You have the gall to ask me how I've been after seven fucking years? Maybe you should have asked me how I felt the day after you chose Bennet-fucking-Aldean for your baseball team before me. He had a _leg brace_ for fucks sake!" She took a breath and continued "And all those times I came over to see you and you had your mom lie about where you were. One time she told me you were sick, and when I went home, in the middle of playing basketball _by myself_, I could see you in your window at your desk. You ass, I dare you to ask me how I've been a second time." Her eyes had narrowed to slits. He didn't seem so big anymore.

"How long have you felt that way?

"For seven fucking years I've gone without closure," He should have expected this.

Back in elementary school, when he and Katie had been inseparable, the girls were busy forming alliances and creating cliques and exclusive clubs. Katie and he had been playing trucks. So when he was being teased for hanging out with a girl, Travis didn't give it a second thought before using his fall back, his other friends and leaving her in his dust. Whenever the guilt rose like bile in his throat he suppressed it thinking Katie was happy. After a while she stopped coming around and started her own club. _With just her in it, _he thought with a wince. The girls didn't welcome her like the boys had Travis. He was good at sports, Katie was good as discussing perennial arbor, not something most grade four girls thought highly of.

He reached out to lay his hand on her arm, his own troubles forgotten "Don't touch me!" She jerked back abruptly and splashed juice everywhere.

"I didn't know any better, I'm sorry," Her eyes were still hard, but they were also wet.

He helped her down and led her outside "I'll clean it up later,"

She sat down on a shaded swinging chair, the only out of date piece of furniture in his house, and let her head fall back. She was all of a sudden exhausted. "Where's your mom?"

"Florida on a business trip." She nodded.

"Katie… I didn't mean to hurt you. I was stupid and selfish back then. I was hanging out with you because it benefitted me." She stiffened and he groaned.

"That's not what I meant at all. Did you know I suffer from this disease? It's called foot-in-the-mouth syndrome,"

"It's not contagious is it?" It was a weak joke but he was relieved to hear it. He hadn't realized how much he wanted her to be happy until then. "If I could go back in time and change everything, I would,"

She said something he couldn't hear and he asked her to repeat herself.

"I said, it's not too late," He was confused. "Why can't you be my friend now? What's stopping you?" It was a genuine question but he knew it was also her own twisted form of a challenge.

He wanted to give in, agree with her, because she made it sound so simple but it wasn't that easy. Or maybe it was. He wondered who was more stable right now, him or her because after everything, he was seriously questioning his sanity.

The silence had stretched on too long, his chance was gone. She was getting up to leave, mumbling for him to forget about it, that it didn't matter. Suddenly she was six again and he was teaching her to ride her bike after her dad left.

He reached out and grabbed her hand "Please, don't leave." She kept her face down, hiding behind her long hair "Please. Please don't leave."

She was crying now, silently at first but then her shoulders were shaking and her eyes were red and swollen. "You never - hiccup - e-even said good-goodbye," She wailed when he hugged her close to him on the porch swing, curled up against his side, face buried in his neck and a fistfull of shirt clutched in each hand.

Her sobs subsided enough for her to hear the soothing things he whispered in her ear.

"It's okay, Katie. It will be fine. You're going to go to university and everyone who ever looked down on you will end up working for you and you'll forget all about this. This won't even matter one day, and I'll just be a distant memory - "

"You shaped my entire childhood," She stated bluntly, wiping her nose on her sleeve. "I'm not just going to forget about you,"

"Okay, so, maybe you won't forget," He reasoned "But it won't hurt so much - "

"Stop. Just, stop. It's okay. I'm okay." He tilted her head up. "I will be," She told no one in particular.

He frowned, frustrated with himself for screwing up so badly so many years ago and then not being able to break the pattern, consciously or not. Her warm hand was on his forehead wiping the wrinkles from between his eyes and smoothing away his fleeting worries.

"It's okay, Travis," She reassured him. "Nobody blames you. For anything." She emphasized, not even blinking an eye at their sudden role reversal. She stood, slipping from his warmth, suddenly the arid heat was a few degrees colder. Her hands were still shaking but her mind was set on ending the agony of right now. "I have to go, but maybe I'll see you around, yeah?"

"Y-yeah, alright." He sucked in his bottom lip feeling overwhelmingly lost in the soft folds of this girl's world. He knew everything about her, had held her in the palm of his hand - and chose to crush the thing held dearest to his heart. She knew everything about him, had held him in the palm of her hand - and chose to love him selflessly like no one else ever had.

She had the largest heart of anyone he had ever met.

She had the largest heart of anyone he would ever meet.

The last realization hit him like a ton of bricks.

* * *

><p>He was uncharacteristically nervous standing on her doorstep, like he'd never knocked on her door, seen her house, been inside of her life before. He had half a mind to turn tail and flee before it cracked open slightly. The lights in her house were off and he could see the soft moonlight on the hardwood floor behind her, but nothing else caught his attention after his eyes trained in on her face, softer around the edges, out of focus in the darkness.<p>

"Yes?" She asked, not unkindly.

He almost didn't ask, worried she wouldn't accept his thinly veiled apology, praying she would realize he wanted all seven years of lost time back. "I was wondering if you wanted to play basketball with me tomorrow," He breathed out.

A smile crinkled the corners of her eyes and tugged her mouth to his unbridled joy. "I would love that,"

"Good, I - thanks. That's - I'll see you around, yeah?" He parroted, stepping backwards off of her porch.

"Yeah, alright,"

"Goodnight,"

"Goodnight," The door closed quietly behind her, and he waited until the light in her bedroom clicked off before trudging back across her lawn to his, climbing the stairs and falling into a blissful sleep, both knowing that he had finally smashed the barrier that cut one off from the other and was making an effort to tape back together two lives (loves) in the process.


End file.
